28 January 2009

Tea with an Old Friend

Today in 1953, Winston Churchill arrived in Southampton on the Queen Mary after a holiday in Jamaica and an informal visit with Dwight D. Eisenhower, with whom he had become well acquainted during World War II. At the time of their meeting in early January, Churchill was 78-years-old and Eisenhower was less than two weeks away from being sworn in as the United States' 34th president. The prime minister arrived at the residence of Bernard Baruch, where he would stay for the entirety of his visit, just in time for tea with not only Eisenhower, but the Duke and Duchess of Windsor - two other devotees of the Queen Mary.

Prime Minister Churchill and then Supreme Allied Commander Eisenhower are pictured here together in March 1945.